IAA trains professionals to deal with aviation-linked challenges

New Delhi, July 15 (ANI): Security, safety and environment protection are some of the prime challenges the civil aviation sector has been facing globally. India has the fastest growing domestic aviation market in the world, where domestic air passenger demand grew by 28.1 per cent in July 2015 as compared to a year ago. This growth is almost three times that of China (10.9 per cent) and five times that of the United States (5.9 per cent) during the same period. To help this fast-growing sector deal with operational and management challenges, the Indian Aviation Academy has been providing training to officials of Airports Authority of India (AAI), Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS). The academy in New Delhi was set up jointly by these departments under the aegis of NIAMAR Society which was formed in July 2010. Sudhir Raheja, Chairman, Airports Authority of India, said, "They are adopting the best practices. In fact, they are recently awarded as best course developer unit by ICAO, from where all over the world the officers can come and get trained in that particular course. For example: payment design and friction testing at the runaway. These are the places where we have recognition from ICAO." The academy has trained thousands of aviation professionals in the last few years, helping to boost performance especially in the domestic sector. The AAI also collaborates with other institutes to provide the best training possible to employees. Anuj Aggarwal, Member (HR), Airports Authority of India, said, "During last few years we have been able to train almost 2,500 to 3,000 officers every year. Besides this, we have tied up with few other organizations and other training institutes to provide training to our officers. Through NPC we have provided a soft skill training, through NIIT we have provided training on computers' application and computer related training. We had also engaged the IDTA for online training for airport operations and airport management. ICAO based training of airport management that is called AMPAP (Airport Management Professional Accreditation Programme), our officers are being nominated for this training. We have a good number of officers who have been certified International airport professionals." Besides launching soft skill development for managerial effectiveness in collaboration with the National Productivity Council (NPC), the academy successfully completed the development process of Standardized Training Packages on "Runway Rubber Removal" in May 2016 which was duly approved by the ICAO. Seeing the growth of aviation sector in the country and rising concerns about security and environment protection, the Academy has been introducing many new courses. Pankaj Gupta, Joint General Manager, Head-CDU, Indian Aviation Academy, said, "We have plans to develop more STPs (Standardized Training Packages). One is on facilitation for physically challenged people at airports and the other one is on airport signage. It's a long pending demand of civil aviation customers that they find difficulty in finding the convenient places conveniently. So, development of these two training packages will be taken up very shortly." The academy has been awarded full membership status by the ICAO under the TRAINAIR PLUS programme. The programme was established by the ICAO to ensure higher training standards for aviation professionals globally. The academy will soon shift to a state-of-the-art campus where more employees in the civil aviation sector will be able to avail specialized training. (ANI)